


Five of McCree's Tattoos (Plus One of Hanzo's)

by SaltCore



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fareeha would like a new brother hers is defective, Fluff, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Getting Together, Hana Song is surrounded by olds, Human Trash Fire Hanzo Shimada, Humor, Jesse McCree is often wrong but never in doubt, Language, Light Angst, M/M, humor but ymmv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: Overwatch's resident tactical cowboy has a variety of tattoos traversing the entire spectrum of taste, and Hanzo discovers a few, entirely unintentionally. It works out for them both.





	Five of McCree's Tattoos (Plus One of Hanzo's)

  1. Tramp Stamp



                “Aw hell,” McCree grumbles. The truck sputters and begins to slow. “Shit damnit.”

                Hanzo raises his eyebrows in alarm. The vehicle still seems under control, but with the way McCree is pounding his fist into the dashboard he thinks there must be cause for concern. There’s a sudden accompaniment of thudding from the roof of the cab.

                “Jesse, why are you stopping?” Genji says, leaning in upside down through the open window.

                “Piece of junk’s givin’ out on me.”

                Genji projects annoyance with the set of his shoulders alone. “Typical Blackwatch bullshit.”

                “Yer telling me, brother.”

                McCree guides the vehicle to the side of the road, braking it to a stop with a metallic squeal. He leans out of the window.

                “We got a snag, y’all, you wanna keep eyes out while I try to sort us?”

                Hanzo clambers to the top of the truck. It’s not a particularly safe vantage point, but it’s the highest ground for miles. The grassland stretches around them, baking in the afternoon sun, and the wind is rustling the grass. Off in the distance is the dark smear of the abandoned facility they’re attempting to discreetly leave behind.

                McCree pulls the truck’s hood up. The hinges groan loudly and the truck bounces as he climbs up onto the front bumper.

                “Fuck,” McCree mumbles.

                “Same,” Hana chimes from the back of the truck.

                “Thanks for the support, Cottontail.”

                “You got it, buckaroo.”

                McCree snorts at her and leans over the engine, muttering softly to himself. The hot wind picks up, snapping the tarp covering Hana’s meka. Hanzo flicks his eyes in that direction on instinct, but there’s nothing but the hulking shape of the hastily concealed combat robot. He scans their surroundings again. The constantly moving grass is irritating, possibly concealing trouble, but nothing crests the groundcover. Lucio hums softly at his left, tapping his fingers on the metal of the bumper and swaying back and forth. Hana mumbles the words beside him, not even trying to sing. Genji stands on the right, posture relaxed. Sweat drips down Hanzo’s face, and he brushes it away.

                “Christ on a goddamned cracker,” McCree growls from the engine. He jumps off, the truck rocking again, and pulls at his over shirt. “It’s too damned hot to think.” He pulls his hat off, practically tears off his over shirt, and replaces the hat. He’s left standing in a thin, standard issue t-shirt, already soaked through in places.

                “Hold this Genji.” McCree tosses the over shirt at his friend’s head. He must have zoned out, because it drapes almost perfectly across the top of Genji’s head and he starts.

                “I don’t want your gross, sweaty shirt!”

                “Aw, but it’s a gift.”        

                “Ew, put your saggy tits away, McCree!” Hana grouses.

                “I ain’t _naked,_ Cottontail.”

                Genji tosses the shirt into the cab and shudders. Hanzo deliberately doesn’t look at McCree, instead staring out into the grass. Nothing coming from either direction on the road, nothing kicking up dust in the fields, and nothing in the air.

                “Hana, c’mere, lookit this.”

                “Are you decent?”

                “I ain’t been decent a day of my damned life, girlie.”

                Hana groans, but walks to the front of the truck. Lucio laughs softly.

                “Oh yeah, that coupling is broken and the bracket is just, like, gone,” she says immediately. “Crap.”

                “Think we could borrow from yer meka?”           

                “One, no. Two, super no. Three, the parts are mostly custom anyway.”

                “Shit.”

                “Did you jiggle it?”

                “That what they teach you in flight school?”

                Hanzo can’t see the look Hana gives him, but he can see McCree throw his hands up.

                “No, I didn’t jiggle it.”

                McCree climbs back onto the truck.

                “Okay, try to start her up.”

                Hana climbs into the cab and shrieks.

                “I touched your shirt! Cow sweat!”

                “Misery loves company,” Genji says sagely. Hanzo sweeps again. Still nothing.

                The truck roars to life under his feet, and he jumps down and immediately ducks into the meager shade. Lucio gives him a sympathetic grimace. McCree leans back with his hands in the air, and the truck dies again. McCree starts swearing and smacks the nose of the truck with his hat as he jumps down.

                “You tell it,” Genji says.

                “You wanna do somethin’ useful?” McCree snaps, slamming the hat back on his head.

                “I’m menacing the grass. It could get ideas.”

                Hana leans out the window, “What happened?”

                “I let it go and it wouldn’t stay put. I just need—” McCree trails off, scratching his head under his hat. He pats down his pockets and pulls out his cigarillos and lighter. He lights it and tucks his thumbs into his belt, staring hard at the engine. Hanzo feels the urge to get back up onto the top of the truck, despite the heat. Someone has to keep a proper watch.

                “Got it!” McCree shouts, and pulls at his belt.

                “McCree, stop taking things off!”

                “I need something to hold everything together, so unless you’re volunteerin’ to ride under the hood, Cottontail.”                

                McCree fiddles with the ridiculous buckle to get it off and stuffs it in his back pocket. The weight pulls the denim lower on his hips. His t-shirt now just barely meets the top of his jeans.  Hanzo should really look away. McCree climbs back up to the engine compartment, leaning forward. His pants slip a little more and his shirt rides up, exposing “GET SOME” scrawled over his lower back in elaborate script. Hanzo reflexively mutters _I’d love to_.

                Panic seizes him when he realized that he said it out loud.

                “What’s that, Han?” McCree says, and Hana gives him a quizzical look from the cab. It’s a small mercy that remembering to speak English is still something of an effort.

                “It’s quite warm,” Hanzo says clearly, plucking at his shirt to move the air around. He thinks he got away with it until he catches Genji looking at him, his head tipped forward in a way Hanzo has learned to recognize as trouble. Genji is looking between himself and McCree, but his head tilts infinitesimally toward McCree and Hanzo realizes Genji must know about the tattoo. Hanzo fights to keep his face neutral. Reacting will just add fuel to the fire. He knows, in that way a brother always knows, that Genji is grinning at him.

                “Fire her up, Cottontail!”

                Hanzo looks at McCree, balancing on the bumper with his hands in the air, tattoo mercifully hidden again.           

                “Wilco!”

                The engine roars again, sputters, and then settles into a low rumble. McCree whoops and jumps back.

                “Nice!” Lucio shouts, swinging himself back up onto the bed of the truck. Hana clambers out and back to join him without touching the ground. Genji stares at Hanzo for just a beat too long and then hauls himself up as well.

                Hanzo gets into the cab and cranks the air conditioning to high.

                “Yer an angel,” McCree says, sticking his face in a vent. He blows a long sigh and then wipes his greasy hands on his discarded over shirt before tossing it over the seat back between them. “Hold tight everybody, this rig’s getting’ a move on!”

 

  1. Chest



                Hanzo is out of soap. He found this out the hard way, having already stepped into the shower before realizing the bottle was dry. He’s marching toward the store room, which is mercifully close to the bunks, trying to ignore the irritation of having half his hair wet and his clothing clinging to damp skin, despite having tried to towel himself off. He rounds a corner, not wasting the step it would have taken to keep himself from brushing the wall.

                “Whoa there,” McCree says, holding his hands up, a toothbrush, still in its packaging, in one hand. Hanzo backtracks immediately.

                “My apologies.”

                “No harm done,” McCree says, smiling. “I’m right sneaky without the boots.”

                Hanzo certainly hadn’t heard him coming around the corner in bare feet, and nearly bare everything else. He’s down to a striped pair of boxers and an unbuttoned plaid shirt.

                “Quite,” is all the response Hanzo manages. He’s trying not to stare, but a patch of ink black is peeking out from the shirt. A large tattoo is covering most of McCree’s left pectoral, but he can’t quite make out what it’s supposed to be. The outline is much clearer than the _other_ one, obviously done by a more skilled artist.

                Something about it is familiar, and suddenly it strikes him. Genji has the same one, in the same place. It’s impossible to miss, given that Genji’s only concession to decency is a rotating cast of stolen sweatpants, and only those for a place to carry his phone or whatever he’s fidgeting with that day.

                He doesn’t know what the symbol is, but knowing McCree and Genji share it stirs something bittersweet in him.  They are brothers, in a way more profound than himself and Genji. He’s glad someone could be that for Genji, as much as it hurts that he threw it away.

                “See somethin’ you like?” McCree asks, and Hanzo realizes he was staring.

                “G—good night, McCree,” he sputters and hurries past. He keeps his head down until he reaches the store room, and then he lingers there for entirely too long, hoping McCree will be gone when he emerges.

                He is, mercifully, and Hanzo slinks back to his room. He taps the mic just inside the door once he’s safely inside.

                “Athena?”

                “Yes, Agent Shimada.”

                “Do you know what the tattoo Genji and McCree have on their chests is?”

                “One moment, Agent Shimada. Accessing video footage. Performing image recognition. Most likely match is: Unofficial Blackwatch logo favored by the agents. Is that all, Agent Shimada?”

                “Yes. Thank you, Athena.”

                “My pleasure, Agent Shimada. Good night.”

                The terminal goes dark. So, Blackwatch. It makes sense. That was what saved Genji, what brought them together, the fire that tempered their brotherhood. To have such a permanent reminder and it not be burden, Hanzo can barely even imagine it. But Genji can, and that is enough for Hanzo.

                He leans into the wall, blows out a long breath. He might as well finish that shower.

 

  1. Back



                “Can we get a little help in the loading dock?” Winston’s voice rings out over the intercom. Hanzo considers his options for a moment, and then sets down his book and ties his hair back. He hardly has any excuse to shirk helping unload their supplies.

                When he arrives, there are others already hard at work. Reinhardt and Winston are moving the heaviest pallets, and Lena and Hana are shuffling smaller items to and fro. McCree and Fareeha are hauling everything in between off the truck. The midday heat is oppressive, and even standing still Hanzo’s shirt is starting to cling uncomfortably. He’s not alone in that, apparently, because Reinhardt, Fareeha, and McCree are already rid of their shirts.

                He walks to the truck and pulls a box off. It’s worse that he expects. He adjusts his grip and lifts it again, shuffling briskly into the shade of the cargo bay. When he gets back to the truck, McCree and Fareeha are bickering toward the front.

                “Can you handle that, kiddo?”

                “I can bench your bodyweight, Jesse.”

                “Scrawny brat like you? Naw.”

                “You’ve gotten pretty fat, but not _that_ fat.”

                “That’s protection! Makes it harder to gut a man.”

                “Oh, I’m sure you’d motivate people to put in the extra effort.”

                Fareeha lifts the biggest box at hand and marches toward the back of the truck. McCree snaps the back of Fareeha’s sports bra as she walks past. She spins and drops the box on McCree’s foot. McCree jerks his foot back and swears.

                “Oops,” she says, entirely unapologetic. She picks the box back up and practically runs out of the truck, jumping down next to Hanzo.

                “Excuse me,” she says, tipping her head and striding off toward the growing pile of boxes in the cargo bay.

                “Brat is a goddamn menace,” McCree grumbles, pushing more boxes to the back of the truck with his uninjured foot. He jumps down next to Hanzo and pulls two boxes over, tucking one under each arm and walking away. Hanzo grabs one of his own and follows McCree.

                McCree has three gorgeous tattoos on his back. There’s no way Hanzo could have missed them, not with the other man walking in front. Each is a work of art in and of itself, but together they form a masterwork triptych of sorts.

                The first is an Egyptian god, one with the head of a bird of prey, his fist curled around a sniper rifle. He sits on McCree’s left shoulder blade, proud and tall. The outline is sharp, and the color is still vibrant and bold. It could have been lifted straight from the restored reliefs at Karnak.

                The second, the oldest by the look of it, is a woman, draped in an emerald shawl dotted with stars. Her head is inclined and her hands pressed together in front of her. She’s higher than the other two, starting just below where McCree’s shoulders meet his neck. Her skin is a shade darker than McCree’s and a few strands of hair are loose across her forehead. She’s smiling softly, round cheeks full and ruddy. Something about the image is fiercely maternal.

                The last is a winged man, a Christian angel, clutching a horn like a weapon. His wings are arced high, almost meeting the edges of his halo. He takes up McCree’s right shoulder, scowling imperiously out at Hanzo. He is draped in dark flowing robes, but there’s a sword strapped to his side, loose in its scabbard.

                The three shift as McCree stacks the crates onto the pile with the others, the proud god, the beatific madonna, the avenging angel. Hanzo watches them for the rest of the afternoon, enraptured. He catches new details with every glance. He’s so focused on not being caught staring, he hardly notices that most of the rest of the team has joined them.

                “The angel is new,” Genji says softly at Hanzo’s elbow.  Hanzo doesn’t start, but he is surprised.

                “It’s well done.”

                “Yes. He’s very particular about those.”

                “They’re lovely. Are they meant to mean something?”

                Genji tilts his head, sucking both lips between his teeth.

                “It’s not for me to say. You should ask him. You should ask him about the other one while you do.”

                “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hanzo tries to will away the color rising up his neck.

                “Of course you don’t,” Genji says, but he’s snickering. Hanzo grits his teeth. Genji bumps his shoulder and saunters away, toward where Angela and Torbjorn are sorting inventory. Hanzo glances back to the truck, but it’s finally empty. He sighs, rolls his shoulders, and sets himself down on the edge of the pavement, facing the ocean. The sea breeze ruffles his bangs, and he leans into it.

                Behind him are heavy footfalls. He glances over his shoulder. McCree is ambling toward him, looking out to the ocean.

                “This seat taken?” he asks. Hanzo shakes his head.

                McCree eases to the ground beside him, groaning.

                “Oh, that’s better.” He leans over his knees, stretching. There’s a soft pop from his back. Hanzo catches himself staring again.

                “Those are beautiful,” Hanzo blurts, in spite of himself. McCree’s eyebrows both jump, but then he smiles, just barely.

                “They’re important. Had ‘em done by the best.”

                “It shows.”

                McCree tips his hat down and fishes out his cigarillos, lighting one. The smoke curls between them, sharp and fragrant. The silence stretches, but it’s not yet awkward.

                “This one,” McCree taps between his shoulders, “I got in memory of my mama. She prayed to the _Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe_ every night, askin’ for blessin’s and grace.” McCree pats his left shoulder. “I got this one for Ana Amari. She had that Eye of Horus tattoo like Fareeha, seemed fittin’” McCree pats his right shoulder. “Got this last one for Gabe Reyes. Gabriel, really, like the angel.” McCree huffs a laugh. “It’d have pissed him off, bein’ memorialized as a cherub.”

                Hanzo can’t think of anything to say, so he doesn’t try. McCree carries his venerated dead with him, inked into his skin. It’s poetic.

                McCree rubs the stub of his cigarillo into the pavement and gets to his feet.

                “Well, that’s enough reminiscin’. By now someone’ll have dinner on, let’s go.” McCree extends one hand to Hanzo. He accepts, letting McCree pull him to his feet. McCree looks around.

                “Aw hell, where’d I leave my shirt?” he mutters. Hanzo looks around, but there’s no clothing in sight. McCree throws his hands up and turns for the door. Hanzo watches the tattoos all the way to mess hall.

 

  1. Foot



                McCree drops heavily onto the couch next to Hanzo. It scoots back an inch from the force. Hanzo glances up from his tablet, attempting to convey exactly how unimpressed he is with nothing but his eyebrows, and McCree has the gall to wink at him. Hanzo rolls his eyes and tries to go back to reading.

                McCree toes off his boots, which jingle softly, and then yanks off his socks and stuffs them down the neck of the left boot. McCree cracks his toes, and Hanzo wrinkles his nose.

                McCree props his bare feet up on the coffee table with a sigh. Hanzo stares in utter disbelief. On the (sweaty, rank) left foot of the animal beside him is another tattoo. A rope circles his ankle, twisting to spell “Yeehaw!” along the outside of his foot. There’s no mystery to ponder here, just pure inanity on the part of the cowboy.

                “’Yeehaw’? Really?”

                “Course.”

                Hanzo shouldn’t be surprised that all the rationale is ‘course’. Of course McCree, with his hat and his spurs and his six shooter, has a “Yeehaw!” tattoo. The truly surprising thing is that there’s not an equally appalling cliché on the other foot.

                “Jesse, get your feet off the table, you beast!” Angela snaps from the armchair beside them.

                “Can’t a man put his feet up in his own home?”

                “Not next to my coffee, he cannot.” Angela bats at him with her own tablet. He’s still grinning, but he drops his feet to the floor. Angela leans back into her armchair, sufficiently placated.

                “What, you tellin’ me you never got any of those on a whim?” McCree wiggles his fingers at Hanzo’s face.

                “With the risk of infection, I certainly hope not,” Angela mutters softly.

                “I put some consideration into the placement,” he says. After a brief glance at Angela he adds “and the establishment.”

                McCree huffs.

                “Yeah, but once you take the plunge the others ain’t such a big deal. You tellin’ me you ‘carefully considered’ gettin’ that first one?”

                “I chose a location that would make facial recognition a chore and was unlikely to get be targeted in a close quarters fight.”

                “That all?”

                Hanzo pauses, considering.

                “I thought it the best of the available options to obfuscate my identity.”

                McCree hums, as if not quite convinced.

                “Be honest, brother, you just thought they looked cool.” Genji leans between them with a smirk that makes Hanzo’s blood run cold. He turns in an exaggerated way to McCree. “I caught him eyeing piercings like that all the time.”

                “You don’t say. Well, they suit him.”

                Genji rattles something off in something in neither English nor Japanese, the syllables more fluid than either language. Italian, maybe? Spanish? McCree shoves him away from the couch mid-sentence, growling out a word that’s clearly an insult.

                Hanzo is frozen in place, unable to decide if he should simply flee or say something in his defense. He’s clearly being mocked by his brat of a brother and a man with a ridiculous “Yeehaw” tattoo, and some things are too much.

                “Excuse me,” he says, getting to his feet and striding out. He turns the corner out of the common room and hurries toward the bunks. He hears Lena and Reinhardt chatting in that direction, however, and turns around rather than risk being mired in their conversation on his way. The roof will be secluded enough at this time of day. He turns around to go the other way and passes the common room door again.

                “Hanzo, wait.”

                McCree’s voice pulls him up short, as much as he wishes it wouldn’t. He stops and stands up straighter.

                “Yes?” he says, but he doesn’t turn around.  

                “Genji was bein’ an ass.” Fingers brush his elbow. Hanzo spins on his heel, jerking his arm back. McCree steps back, his hands up. “I didn’t mean no harm. I’d hate for you to go gettin’ the wrong idea.”

                “And what would the right idea be?” He asks, his voice more steady than he feels.

                “That I wasn’t kiddin’ you about the piercin’s suitin’. It’s a pretty sight.”

                Where his pride has been wounded before, now he’s embarrassed for a different reason.

                “Oh. Thank you.” He forces himself to relax his posture.

                “Welcome.” McCree smiles, something almost shy about it. “Say, half the fun of getting’ inked up is tellin’ the story later. Be a shame if you got spooked before you’d seen the rest. I got a few I think you’d take a real shine to, and I know I owe a story for one you’ve already seen.”

                Hanzo nods, not trusting himself to find the words to respond to _that_. McCree tips his hat and turns back to the common room. Hanzo stand dumbly in the hallway, McCree’s words rattling in his head, until he realizes _Genji must have told him._

                Genji told him, but then he went and—

                _Oh._

 

  1. Knuckles



                McCree has the word ‘dead’ tattooed across his fingers, just under his knuckles. The ink is faded and blue, the lines making up the word thin. It could have been mistaken for grease or dirt, had McCree not been elbow deep in the kitchen sink.

                Hanzo hadn’t noticed it before, or rather, hadn’t noticed exactly what it said. If McCree hadn’t been handing him flatware to dry, he wouldn’t have spent so much time looking at his hands. He’d seen something there, briefly, in the rare moments when McCree’s hand was un-gloved and not moving.

                Puzzling out the meaning gives him something for his mind to do while his hands work. There probably used to be a second word on the other hand. Eye, perhaps? But that’s only three letters. Eyes? That sounds strange to Hanzo’s ear, but then he’s not a native English speaker.

                It must not have been important, since he didn’t bother to have it replicated on his prosthetic. Such a detail might not have been possible, but, wait, he has that skull relief and it is purely decorative.

                Shot? It’s possible. It would fit. _Dead Shot_. It does sounds like something McCree would decorate himself with.

                “Anybody home?”

                Hanzo jumps, caught staring at McCree’s hand where his fingers are tapping on the counter. He looks to the sink, which is empty. McCree plucks the damp towel out of his hands, drying his own.

                Hanzo frowns back. “Yes?” The towel is slung over McCree’s shoulder, gripped lightly in his right hand, the tattoo clearly visible. He looks deliberately away from McCree’s hand and lands on his face instead, which is etched with a mild sort of concern. McCree reaches out, slowly, and brushes back a stray lock that had fallen out of Hanzo’s bun.

                “You look awful serious for just dryin’ dishes.”

                Hanzo weighs the risks of asking. Curiosity wins out over a fear of causing offense. McCree had been forthcoming every other time he’d asked.

                “Dead?” Hanzo asks. McCree winces and huffs.

                “Hell. I was fourteen and thought I was hot shit.” He holds both fists up. “Used to say Deadlock. Upside to losin’ my arm, fewer dumbshit gang tattoos.”

                McCree lets his hands fall, shrugging, color rising in his face.

                “Was a stupid kid. Ain’t nothin’ for it.”

                Hanzo reaches out and snatches McCree’s hand, pressing his lips to McCree’s knuckles. It’s a bold gesture for him, but McCree inspires that kind of bravado in Hanzo. A handful of moments in the last few days is all that defines this thing between them, and yet Hanzo feels profoundly changed.

                “I wouldn’t change a thing about you, ‘dumbshit gang tattoos’ and all.”

                McCree chuckles, cheeks still red, and pulls Hanzo in for a kiss. Hanzo thinks he’ll never get used to this, the casual affection McCree gives freely and liberally. The taste of him, the weight of his arms around his neck, the heat of his body standing close, none of it seems real. It’s too perfect to be real.

                McCree pulls back, letting his teeth catch Hanzo’s bottom lip as he goes. Hanzo barely resists his urge to chase him down.

                “Looks like we’re finished up, what’d’ya say we get outta here?”

                “Lead the way.”

 

        +1 Ribs

                The dragon wound around Hanzo’s left arm is no secret. It is what it is, and like many of the remnants of Hanzo’s previous life, he cannot hide it here so he doesn’t try. There’s another tattoo he doesn’t call attention to, however. Thirteen tally marks, in slightly different shades and widths tucked into a space on his right ribs. Jesse would never have seen it if he hadn’t been taking his time kissing his way down Hanzo’s body. He stops to lavish attention on it, stark and strange against an otherwise barren stretch of skin.

                Hanzo goes tense underneath him, and not in a good way. Jesse pulls away immediately.

                “Hanzo?” His voice curls up in concern. He rubs a circle into Hanzo’s thigh with his thumb, trying to soothe the man underneath him. Hanzo’s expression goes from pinched to carefully neutral as he stares right through Jesse. Jesse hates that expression, hates that Hanzo packs everything tight behind it, hates that Hanzo’s first instinct is always to retreat, even from him.

                Jesse squeezes Hanzo’s thigh, and Hanzo glances down at his hand, almost like he’d forgotten it was there.

                “What’d I do wrong, sugar?” Jesse asks.

                “Nothing,” Hanzo lies. Hanzo pushes himself up and into Jesse, draping his arms around Jesse’s shoulders. Jesse opens his mouth to call him out, but Hanzo take the opportunity for a kiss before he can find any words. It’s enough distraction that Hanzo can maneuver Jesse onto his back, pick up where he left off with Jesse’s belt before Jesse distracted him earlier.

                “Hanzo,” Jesse says again, a little more forcefully this time. Hanzo smiles down at him but it’s all wrong. The expression is nothing like genuine amusement, vapid and empty, just another kind of blankness. Jesse presses both hands against Hanzo’s shoulders gently, and Hanzo sits back, the awful smile disappearing.

                “You can tell me what it is, Han, or you can not, but don’t act like it’s nothin’.”

                Hanzo brushes the tallies, his jaw muscles twitching as he grits his teeth. Jesse scoots to sit beside Hanzo, pressing against his shoulder. 

                “It’s a reminder,” Hanzo starts. He goes still and quiet for a long moment, and Jesse thinks that’s all he’s going to say about it. Thirteen of something, and not something good. Jesse lifts his arm and lays it across Hanzo’s shoulders. Hanzo leans in closer, tipping his head into Jesse’s chest.

                “After Genji, after I realized what I’d done, what they’d told me to do, I left. Ran. That was the night Blackwatch raided our home, killed some of the Shimada-gumi, arrested others. Much of my family escaped, however.”

                “I remember. Genji went to a lot of trouble huntin’ ‘em down.”

                Hanzo nods.

                “So did I. They made me into a man who would kill his own brother for them, but most were surprised when I came for them. As if it weren’t such a small leap to move from a little brother to men and women who’d never shown me any kindness. I have killed three of my uncles, a great aunt, and eight cousins in the last ten years.”

                That’s twelve. McCree thinks he knows who the last tally is for.

                “But I had the blood of my kin on my hands, even if I only regretted Genji’s. I don’t think I could ever let myself forget, but I wanted to be sure I couldn’t.”

                McCree squeezes him a little tighter and thinks carefully about his next words.

                "Yer more than just the decision you made that night, you know that?"

                Hanzo laughs, short and humorless.

                “Yes, I’m all the ones I made before and after as well.”

                “ _Han_.”

                Hanzo sighs, going almost limp against Jesse’s side. Jesse lowers them both down flat on the bed, settling Hanzo on his chest.

                “You made the decision to join up. You made the decision to go out there and risk yer life to save people what don’t even know they’re in trouble. You made the decision to follow me back here tonight.”

                “Jesse,” Hanzo growls, pinching Jesse’s side.

                “What? You make me a very happy man.”

                Hanzo’s lips curl, this time in real amusement.

                “That says something about you,” Hanzo says.

                “I got magnificent taste is what it says.”

                Hanzo groans, embarrassed by Jesse’s naked affection. Jesse kisses him on the crown and shuffles out of his jeans, then reaches down for the sheet.  He pulls it up and over the both of them, officially putting an end to the discussion and the day. Hanzo resettles himself, curling up against Jesse’s side with an arm thrown across his chest. Jesse watches the tension to ebb from Hanzo, then listens for his breathing to go slow and even. Moonlight catches the jewelry in his ears, sets them glinting like tiny stars. Jesse could watch all night, but, warm and content as he is, sleep steals up on him as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and feel free to hmu at https://saltytothecore.tumblr.com/


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